Despite the Royals success against power pitching this season, Terry Collins and the Mets aren’t concerned. They won’t alter their game plan, and they will continue to do what’s made them successful all year.
“Successful pitchers pitch to their strength,” manager Terry Collins said. “If that’s your main pitch, that’s what you’re throwing. What you’ve got to do is make good pitches with it.” (Jared Diamond, Wall Street Journal)
Collins has insisted that “we’ve still got to pitch to our strength, and our strength is power.”
The Royals are a team that attacks fastballs early in the count and struggles against pitches with low velocity. As Diamond points out in his article, the Royals only bat .209 on pitches 85 mph or slower, which the worst mark in the American League.
However, bench coach Bob Geren believes the Mets can use their aggressiveness against them. The Royals lineup is full of free swingers, and he believes the Mets pitchers can get them to chase pitches outside the zone.
“Sometimes to get the bat going to get to 95, you end up swinging at some marginal pitches,” Geren said. “So if they’re not walking but they’re getting hits, the total overall offensive output might not be any greater than a team that hits .240 on that pitch but tends to walk more.”
While the Royals may be a tougher matchup than the Cubs or Dodgers, the Mets’ staff can handle them just fine. They don’t only rely on power and high velocity as the Mets’ big three of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard are each polished pitchers with exceptional command.
Pitchers with this kind of ability will make it difficult for any lineup to have success, including Kansas City’s.
“It’s mixing our pitches and not relying on our effective velocity,” Harvey said Monday about taking on the Royals. “We’ve done our homework here, and we know what Kansas City is about.”
